[back-formation from FREEBOOTER.] intr. To act as a freebooter, plunder.
1592. Greene, Black Bk.’s Messenger, Wks. (Grosart), XI. 17. I came to the credite of a high Lawyer, and with my sword free booted abroad in the country like a Caualier on horsebacke, wherein I did excell for subtelty.
1659. Bp. Gauden, Serm. at Fun. Bp. Brounrig (1660), 104. Jesus … loves to see his Soldiers not stragling and freebooting in broken parties … but united.
1869. T. Cobbe, in Echo, 28 Oct. When the conquerors had freebooted thoroughly, they settled.
1879. N. Y. Tribune, 25 Nov. (Cent. Dict.). An ambition to shed blood and to freeboot it furiously over the placid waters took possession of their bosoms.
Hence Free-booting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1596. Spenser, State Irel. Wks. (Globe), 631/2. When he goeth abrode in the night on free-booting, it is his best and surest frend.
1683. Chalkhill, Thealma & Cl., 119.
| Many a night | |
| Had they us’d this free-booting. |
1798. C. Smith, Young Philosopher, II. 242. I could not bear they should risk distressing themselves, by making any engagement to the free-booting savage who had taken advantages so unjust.
1868. Milman, Annals of S. Paul’s Cathedral, iii. 52. Fulk de Beauté, the great freebooting rebel who played so important a part in the wars at the end of John’s reign and the beginning of that of Henry III.
1876. Fox Bourne, Locke, II. xi. 162. The Earl of Bellamont, an Irish peer, whom, in 1695, William the Third appointed governor of New York and Massachusetts, where freebooting was terribly rife.
